Saturday, October 12, 2013

We left Alajuela fairly late - we had been told the night before there were buses every hour.

Then suddenly the next morning we were told something completely different from a new guy working at the hostel.

He was adamant there were no buses til mid afternoon direct to Monteverde.

So back to finding our first guy.

Fortunately he was still there, and about to leave, so we had him write the town we had to get the first bus to.

We had a taxi take us for an extremely long ride, it should have been 6 blocks, but somehow he managed to go about 25 blocks and I knew we were getting stung.

He was a taxi driver, called by the guy who gave us the wrong info.

So lesson here, is go out and hail one in the street, and negotiate a price without the metre.

We got to the bus station, and they would let us pay in US$, but at a lousy rate.

Costa Rica was costing me a lot - maybe that is the "Costa" bit, says Explorason.

We take what is meant to be a 1 hour bus trip and it was about 3 hours.

To add to that, there is no bathroom, so when it stops I had my son dashing madly to the bathroom.

Somehow we end up on the Pacific Coast - at Puntarenas.

This seems strange as we are going to the centre of Costa Rica.

We get a fairly good deal on lunch at the bus terminal.

We then head across the road to wait for the next bus.

There are only 2 afternoon buses - and 45 minutes apart - more weirdness.

But we get to see the coast, and it is hot and stuffy.

We are then told the bus is 1 hour to Monteverde.
But it is raining and it is a terrible road.

We start to head through the cloud forest.
The trip takes 4.5 hours.

We arrive at Monteverde Hostel Lodge.
This is no hostel. This is a gorgeous lodge.
To get to our room, we have to cross a suspension bridge.

Our room is all wood.
It is spacious, and clean, with an en-suite.

We had heard about the famous Tree House Restaurant - one of the top 10 most unusual restaurants in the world, so we headed there for a snack and a drink.

So glad we shared a meal, as again we were over budget.

My budget was NOT liking Costa Rica, or as we now called it "Costa Lota".

But it stopped raining and we enjoyed sitting under the big tree upstairs - a novel and fun night, and we had great service too.

The balcony outside our room is a lovely spot for a quiet time in the morning.
I sat and just breathed in the fresh mountain air.

The surrounding cloud forest garden is just lovely.

The birds are singing and we see hummingbirds, and other magnificent birds.
Apparently there are monkeys, but we don't get to see any, and were told we should have left out banana to entice them.

Unfortunately it rained all night, and that morning.

We were drowned rats just getting to breakfast.

But we didn't mind having the day in.

We were waiting for another travelling family to arrive, so we caught up on some blogs, emails and had a lazy morning.

We met up with our new friends and sat and chatted all afternoon.
We then decided to go back to the Tree House restaurant, but it was raining, so that was a shame.
But we added another Australian guy to the group, who had travelled a lot of the area we were all going so we got some tips from him.

Next day we all met for breakfast, and decided to go to the Suspension Bridges.
There are 8 bridges, and we were fortunate they had a car, as it is a long way out of Monteverde town area.

It cost us $60 for entry for my son and I and that included the small Hummingbird Garden.

It is a pretty long walk, and it is a shame as you can't really see the water underneath.
There are no paths the kids could go off exploring.
We didn't see any wildlife either.
In other parts of the world, you wouldn't even be charged, but everything is money here.

We enjoyed the walk - would be awesome if the clouds had moved over whilst on the bridges.

Next was the Hummingbird garden.
It is small with 2 tiers, and a lot of hummingbird feeders.

The hummingbirds are noisy and fast, and fly right close to you - freaky.

My son went on his own and was patient - he wanted to touch one.

I was amazed at his patience, and how he did indeed get to touch one - just!

The garden is better value than the bridges and is $5 to get into.

The colours, sizes and varieties are incredible.
A great place to take kids.

When we headed back to the lodge, my son said the suspension bridges were 'boring'.
I was disappointed as we had spent a whole days budget, just going there, but I was glad he was honest, as I would do other things next time.

Next morning (we are early risers) we were in the forest for a walk.

It was a good lesson - banana palms and flowers forming, so you could see exactly how they grow.
There was also many types of coffee plants, and I found that interesting as they were all sign labelled.

Our friends offered to take us to Liberia to get a bus.
Their car was so packed, it was hilarious, but we managed to all get in.

Driving down we did pass a few clouds floating through.
Monteverde is a great place to visit.
Monteverde Hostel Lodge is new (they only bought it 3 weeks ago).
It is a great place to stay and I would recommend it if you go there.
The staff are friendly and a good place to meet other travellers.

We have decided to leave Costa Rica.

Our budget for world travels would be too dented if we stayed here.

We met ex-pats who told us the Americans are leaving as it has become too expensive.

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About Me

We are a traveling and exploring duo. I'm a single older Mum from Australia, and I have been traveling with my son around the world.

We love to focus on Random Acts of Kindness when we travel.

Anything from feeding the homeless in Hollywood, to the beggars on the streets of Bolivia.

In Fiji we helped clothe a village, gave out walking sticks, toys and books, personal and household items, and food. We also paid school fees & provided necessities for 2 children whose father just died, and their mother had left them. Just recently I got a thank you note that they were reined with their mother, and they never forgot our kindness.

I love to motivate single parents, and families to change their lives, and to go and follow there dreams. Many a single parent has written to me and thanked me for encouraging them to get out of the rat race, and to spend time with their child/ren incorporating travel.

We support ourselves with our savings. We have no income. We are sometimes given money to give out to the poor, but none has ever been kept by us. That is because we love to give!

It is a great way to also educate my son. He learns, food, culture, social skills, language, history, art, geography, budgeting, currency conversion, and so much more.

So we have sold our home, car, most of our possessions, and we have left our old life in Australia behind for now. I also left an executive job, and my own small business, having previously also owned several businesses over the years in retail.

We do not have a mapped out route of where we travel. We talk and work that out as we go.

I guess my first travel experience was as a baby. I can thank my parents for my travel bug. We have 6 girls in our family, and some of us would pile in a van that my Dad had modified, and we had a huge old army tent, and every school holidays they took us on an adventure - somewhere in Australia.

By the time I was 21 I had my first overseas trip. This was to Japan, UK, Europe, USA, Canada, and Central America. It lasted a year, and involved Contiki, solo traveling, mission travels, and more.

I continued my love for travel and missions through my 20's to many countries overseas - in fact so many I have lost count.

I then added Thailand (where I learnt about a new instant print process), and came back and started an instant print and paper store.

After that I went on 7 trips to Indonesia (actually I lost count how many), with an import business, and a retail homewards and gift store intertwined.

Travel overseas halted for a while, but I moved to Hunter valley and Sydney and continued Australian holidays instead.

After the birth of my son (he had his first holiday at 4 weeks, and his first plane trip at 6 weeks old), I continued trips back and forth to NSW. Holidays became a common thing in Fiji, as it was a safe place to take a small child, so our love for Fiji and the people was birthed.

Each time we went to Fiji we took loads of things for the poor, thus our desire for Random Acts of Kindness was birthed.

So it was not surprising that it was Explorason's idea to go back to Fiji as the start of our journey, and to take load of toys, books and clothes to give to the children when we were there.

So thus the journey began in 2012.

Travel for us is not just about seeing. It is about making a difference too.

The more we give, the more we want to give.

It has become our addiction - to put a smile on a face.

To say "we care".

We love: To explore; To experience the new; To never give up; To live life to the full; To meet new people; To give when people least expect it….. To do Random Acts of Kindness, as we see and learn, while we travel the world.